5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

Over the last few decades, the concept of “social innovation” has been widely adopted by academics, decision makers, policymakers and practitioners alike. There’s been a lot of discussion around the concept, but not much consensus, suggesting that in this emerging field there is still a fertile ground for competing views and ideas to emerge, adding more complexity around its core concept. This debate has also been inspired by a large number of ongoing experiences in all parts of the world, which have both benefited from the theoretical formulations about social innovation and its instrumentalization as well as having incorporated elements drawn from the empirical evidence these experiences provide.

Despite this growing interest around the theme, there are still several gaps in the sociological debate around social innovation, which has been relatively more restricted than that concerned with the social dimensions of science and technology. Aiming to contribute to fill in some of these gaps, this track seeks to promote a critical discussion around social innovation and its surrounding themes. We invite authors to reflect on the role of social innovation to address the issues of justice, inclusion, sustainability, empowerment, development – often with different approaches, dynamics and outputs in the Global North and the Global South – addressing the core question of how can social innovation lead to a just social transformation. We welcome papers that address conceptual aspects as well as empirical elements of social innovation experiences, its practices, policies and politics.